Dan-Ball Wiki:Manual of Style
This page is a suggested method of styling your wiki - you may wish to edit it to suit your wiki's tastes. You may also wish to add links to various articles that best show off your wiki's design. This page is also a work-in-progress, so sections of this article may be incomplete or unrelated to Dan-Ball. ---- The Dan-Ball wiki Manual of Style provides a general guideline for clean, consistent article formatting. The formatting described here is merely a guideline, so there will undoubtedly be exceptions to the basic standards that can be overridden under certain circumstances. However, please try your best to keep to the advice outlined in this article so others may use your edits as an example when they edit. For a more expansive set of style guidelines, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style. A sample article based off these guidelines can be found on Dan-Ball Wiki:Manual of Style/Sample. Article layout One of the most important parts of wiki editing is knowing how to structure an article. Sections in an article should be organized like they would be in an outline. Keep a clean, clear, and consistent layout without too many sections. General article guide *Always include at least one sentence about the subject when starting an article. Do not include subsections before typing at least one introductory sentence (one exception is the articles on the enemies in Stick Ranger). *The first sentence should give a brief definition of the article's subject, and the subject has to be written in bold (with three apostrophes () around the subject's name). *Write in third person: use "the player" instead of "you". *Linking is limited to the first occurrence of the word or phrase. **There are certain exceptions to this, however. This rule does not include any kinds of templates, captions in pictures and galleries, long lists, charts, or tables, or "See also" sections. *Any time a version of a Dan-Ball game is mentioned, it should be written in one of the following formats: "'''ver1.1", "version 1.1", "V1.1". Lead section Unless an article is a stub, it should start with an introductory lead section, before the first subheading. The lead should not have a header such as Introduction . The table of contents will appear after the lead section and before the first subheading. Ideally, the lead section should be able to provide an overview of the whole article, as well as explain any notable or interesting facts about the subject. The length of the lead section varies from each article. For longer articles (ex. Stick Ranger, Powder Game, etc.), the lead section can be anywhere between one to two paragraphs. For shorter articles (ex. individual Stick Ranger stages, etc.), two to three sentences would suffice. The first time the title is mentioned in the article, put it in bold (not brackets) by using three apostrophes - article title produces article title. Bold text can also be used for alternate titles of an article. For example: Seawater (also called salt water or saline water) is an artificial liquid element found in Powder Game. Section headings Section headings are used to help divide and organize information in an article. For headings, use the code (two equal signs) around the section title. Avoid using links and special characters in subject headings as much as possible, because it is bad wikicode. Consider instead putting the word in one of the sentences after the section and linking it there. The first letter of the first word and any proper nouns should be capitalized; all other letters should be in lowercase (ex. use "Staff of Ice", not "Staff of ice"; use "External links" instead of "External Links"). Note that this is different from most section title rules you'll encounter elsewhere. Always keep headings short and simple. Headings are guidelines to your page's structure and should inform the reader rather than confuse. To keep it short, avoid unnecessary words or redundancy in headings, i.e. avoid a, an, and the, pronouns, repeating the article title, and so on. Also, try to avoid giving identical titles to different sections. Images Images make an article memorable and pretty. They can speak where words fail. At the same time, misplaced or untidy images can detract from an article. When choosing images, keep in mind placement, size, and the appropriateness of the image to the section. Let images flow with the text instead of break it up. Large images such as screenshots should use the "thumb" (example: ) option which displays large images as thumbnails. For smaller images, use "frame" instead of "thumb". Images should generally be right aligned to enhance readability - the "thumb" option does this by default. After uploading an image, categorise it. For some kind of images you should try to follow special rules: *Images for the inventory in Stick Ranger (e.g. weapons or compo items) should always have a size of 24×24 pixel. See Category:Stick Ranger weapons and Category:Stick Ranger items for examples. *Images for enemies in Stick Ranger should have always a border of 1 pixel around the enemy at all four sides. For an enemy which can be only found underwater, use a blue background. Don't use screenshots from stages with effects such as darkness and heat wave because the picture may be distorted or incorrectly coloured. See Category:Stick Ranger enemies and Category:Stick Ranger items for examples. Galleries When an article has many inline images that can be distracting or messy, the use of a section is encouraged. Image:Example.jpg|Caption Image:Example.jpg|Caption Galleries should be made near the bottom of the page. Avoid using low-quality or duplicate images, and try to create a caption for the images where necessary. Tables Tables should use a "class" design when possible, and should include as little 'fancy' formatting as possible. Tables can also be made sortable by adding a "sortable" class. For long tables, it is recommended to create an "alt" class to alternate row colours to enhance readability. The below examples use "toccolours" as a class, but this is only for the purposes of demonstration, and isn't generally recommended. | |} Navigation boxes Navigation boxes are templates that are used to group together similar concepts. They may be based off of . Unlike infobox templates, navigation templates are easy to place on pages, not requiring the user to add any additional information. Most navigation boxes are placed at the end of an article, above the categories, but some such as are placed at the top. Examples: , , . See also, references and external links The order of the last sections of an article should always be "See also", followed by "External links". In the case of "See also", use bullets to list the internal links. In the "External links" section should be a bulleted list of all external links. Categories Categories should be added to the very end of an article - a full list can be found on . They take the form Category:Categoryname. All articles should be accessible starting from Category:Browse, via subcategories. :See also: 'Dan-Ball Wiki:Manual of Categorization'' Disambiguation Disambiguations are used to resolve the confusion that may arise when a single term refers to more than one topic covered by this wiki's articles. There are two types of disambiguations: '''articles and lines, also known as simple disambiguations. An example of a disambiguation article is Green Smiley Walker. Because there is more than one type of Green Smiley Walkers in Stick Ranger, an individual article is needed to distinguish the two pages. A disambiguation article contains Template:Disambig at the top and has links to all related terms. A disambiguation line is put at the beginning of an article to link to another article with the same or similar title. Simple disambiguations should be put italicized and indented once, and be in the form: :This article is about x. For the y, see z. Where x is a description of the subject that the article covers, y is a description of the other similar subject, and z is the link to the other similar page. An example of simple disambiguations is on the pages Gas (Powder Game element) and Gas (state of matter). Grammar Grammar is a writer's toolbox. You can't build good sentences without knowing how to use your tools. Since a wiki article must be as clear as possible for all the people reading it, editors must keep close to correct grammar standards to ensure clear communication. Capitalization titles Titles should only be capitalized if they are proper nouns. For instance, List of enemies is correct, because "enemies" is not a proper noun. However, Hit and Run strategy is fine, because "Hit" and "Run" is part of the phrase, and should be capitalized. Stick Ranger In Stick Ranger, all proper nouns should start with a capital letter. To name a few examples, *Blue Boss Fairy Snake *Staff of Ice (note that words like "of" are not capitalized) Abbreviations should be completely capitalized. *AGI for Agility *LP for Life Points *Orange Skull Bat (GL2) (the proper noun is capitalized, as well as the abbreviation for the stage Grassland 2) All other words remain uncapitalized. *Explosion (orb) ("orb" is not a proper noun) *compo item, onigiri, jewels *Category:Stick Ranger species ("Stick Ranger" is a proper noun, "species" is not) *Stick Ranger classes, such as Boxer, Magician, and Angel are proper nouns, and should be capitalized whenever they are mentioned. Powder Game Similarly, in Powder Game, elements are not proper nouns, and as such, should not be capitalized. Example: *Cloud becomes water when touched by block and solid elements, except glass, charged glass, ice, clone and metal. Spelling There are many different variants of how words are spelled. (Examples: color and colour, categorization and categorisation, capitalization and capitalisation, etc.) To avoid edit wars over a trivial concept like the territorial spelling of words, the spelling of the word will stay as is, meaning that the person who initially typed the word will decide how it is spelled. However, in the event that a new Stick Ranger enemy is created, the wiki will use the Enemy Naming System and follow the British spelling to avoid confusion and keep things consistent. (Example: Grey Smiley Fish instead of Gray Smiley Fish.) Titles of works Italics are used for the titles of works, such as games and uploads for Powder Game. For example, titles of Powder Game uploads should use the template or like this: by Callex. Writing : “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs” -- Stephen King When editing wikis, you need to be both academic and artistic. You have to be accurate, but you also have to be interesting, and you must balance both. Keep your writing concise. Don't use two words where one will do. Keeping your writing simple will make it easy to understand and easy to expand on. Use complete sentences whenever possible (lists are an exception to this). When you write, use grammar as a toolbox: know the rules, but only break them on purpose. Check your spelling and grammar. Capitalise the first letter of all proper nouns, and always start a sentence with a capitalised word. Ensure that SPG (Spelling, Punctuation, Grammar) is correct and sound. Write the way you would for a class paper or a newspaper article. Keep all of the topics you cover within the scope of the article. What that means is, you don't need to give a detailed writeup of enemies on the Species page. Consider the article's title as your point of origin and write from that perspective. Make use of the wiki's ability to link to more detailed articles or external sources for more information. Write from an impersonal perspective. Do not use "I". For example, do not write, "I think Sniper is the best class in Stick Ranger", even if the majority has the same opinion. Avoid drawing attention to the author (yourself). Be neutral. Strive to provide facts, avoid writing about opinions - your motif is to inform the reader as opposed to persuading him/her. For example, "Priests are able to support the group with aura but are unable to deal much damage" is a factual statement, while "Priests are lousy because they can't deal damage" is very opinionated. Always try to give both sides of the story. More on this can be found on the Dan-Ball Wiki:Neutral Point of View page. Be bold. If you know something is wrong, correct it. If you think you could word something better, write it. If an article has a glaring deficiency, fill it. Do not be afraid to edit. Even if your first attempt isn't golden, you can fix it later (or someone else will fix it for you). As long as you are editing in good faith, you will not get in trouble. Conclusion Every article can be improved (even this one). Following these guidelines will not ensure a perfect article the first time, but it will give the article a stronger skeleton. It's ultimately your job as an editor to put meat on it. See also *Dan-Ball Wiki:Manual of Style/Sample - a sample wiki article. *Dan-Ball Wiki:Manual of Categorization *Dan-Ball Wiki:Neutral Point of View External links *Wikipedia's Manual of Style *''UNSC Marine Corps'' on Halopedia *''Development of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion'' on Wikipedia *''Assassin's Creed'' on Assassin's Creed Wiki